Barbary Lark's Veil

Barbary Lark's Veil: Object Post 106

Source? Who knows?

Significance? Veils are mysterious, and so is Barbary

Fate? Ageless, changeless

Author’s inspiration? An interest in mediaeval clothing.

***

Barbary, clad in her gown  and her veil

 Belongs to no man,  with no favours for sale

Barbary Lark is a mysterious young woman whom the villagers, and especially the young men, see from time to time. She wears her gown and her veil and she’s anything but shadowy as she goes about her business. She picks the natural harvest and makes up potions. She goes by the school and calls a cheerful good morning as she passes by. Everyone knows her but since she doesn’t age they find her unsettling. She’s touched by fairy blood and thus her clothing is quaint and old-fashioned. Barbary, like Enno with her frenched beret, never sees a reason to change. She just is.

Barbary and her veil cast their light-hearted sunshine in Myths of the Mind. In oeuvre terms she may be related to Genista dar Whin in the garlands of Thorn and May series. Barbary Chalk from that series shares her first name. It’s not a common one and seems to be a form of Barbara with a loose meaning of “stranger”.  Such a name coupled with a veil fits an enigmatic character.

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places, objects and themes. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!